city officials have offered protesters a $1-a-year lease on a 10,000-square-foot office space near City Hall. He said officials also promised land elsewhere for protesters who wish to farm, as well as additional housing for the contingent of homeless people who joined the camp.

The mayor, at his news conference, read a statement he had issued around 6 a.m. explaining the reasoning behind the sweep. “The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” the mayor said in the statement. “Every since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with” because the protesters had taken over the park, “making it unavailable to anyone else.”

“In some ways, they’re not that different from some of the protests that we saw coming from the Tea Party. Both on the left and the right, I think people feel separated from their government. They feel that their institutions aren’t looking out for them,” he said.

Occupy Wall Street protesters said yesterday that packs of brazen crooks within their ranks have been robbing their fellow demonstrators blind, making off with pricey cameras, phones and laptops — and even a hefty bundle of donated cash and food.

Mostly because Tea Partiers stand for hard work and property rights – Taxed Enough Already is their motto.

Does that mean they’ll stop by Bloomberg’s own abode? He’s The Man, after all. He says he won’t throw out the occupiers “as long as they’re not breaking any laws“, so one must guess that in Mike’s book loitering, drug use, public defecation, and what in olden days was called “creating a public nuisance” are not against any laws. Makes me pine for the days of Giuliani.

On a personal note,
For years I worked in downtown Manhattan, but had never heard of “Zuccotti Park” until this latest fiasco. As it turns out, I walked past the “park” every morning and every evening but never stopped to find out if it had a name. It’s mostly a plaza.

Better there than at Louise Nevelson Plaza down the street. I’m rather fond of Louise’s sculptures.

Socialist firebrand Hugo Chavez condemned on Saturday the “horrible repression” of anti-Wall Street protesters and termed a Republican presidential candidate “crazy” for his criticism of Cuba and Venezuela.

Although still convalescing from cancer surgery in June followed by four rounds of chemotherapy, the 57-year-old Venezuelan president is quickly returning to the tough rhetoric and strong views that have made him famous worldwide.

Not surprisingly, Chavez expressed solidarity with American activists who have been staging rallies and marches against what they view as corporate greed by Wall Street.
…
“This movement of popular outrage is expanding to 10 cities and the repression is horrible, I don’t know how many are in prison now,” Chavez said in comments at a political meeting in his Caracas presidential palace shown on state TV.

Hugo looooves the filthy hippies, unlike the workers whose businesses are in the line of feces, fire: